


The Wasteland

by xwoman



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Aftermath of Violence, Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate History, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Historical, American History, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Romance, Canon-Typical Violence, Charles in a Wheelchair, Cherik - Freeform, Cuban Missile Crisis, Dark, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gun Violence, Heavy Angst, Heroin, Historical Accuracy, Historical References, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Injury Recovery, JFK assassination, LSD, M/M, Major Character Injury, Male Homosexuality, Male Slash, Marijuana, Mild Sexual Content, Non-Graphic Smut, Overdose, Paralysis, Permanent Injury, Post X-Men: First Class, Post-Cuba, Recreational Drug Use, Sad, Sexual Content, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Violence, Wheelchairs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 12:11:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5626120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xwoman/pseuds/xwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles cried into the crook of Erik’s neck, “I wish we could be together.” Charles sobbed, “in some other time, in some other world, I wish we could be together. I wish you hadn’t done all these terrible things.” Erik pulled Charles into him, holding him tightly, “I f***ing hate you Erik, I hate you so much.”</p><p>“I know you do, Charles.” Erik whispered into Charles’ mop of messy hair.</p><p>1962-1963-slight AU.<br/>(formally The Things We Can't Make Better [UPDATED])</p><p>*STRONG LANGUAGE*<br/>*ANGST LEVELS 100+*<br/>*MUCH DRUG USE*<br/>*M/M NON-GRAPHIC SEXUAL CONTENT*<br/>*HOMOSEXUALITY*<br/>*MENTIONS OF SUICIDE/SUICIDE ATTEMPT*<br/>*GRAPHIC VIOLENCE*</p><p>Disclaimer:<br/>These characters are not mine (blah blah blah) even though I wish they were (blah) they belong to Marvel (blah blah) even though I wish they didn't (blahhhhhhblah).</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wasteland

“My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me.  
“Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.  
“What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?  
“I never know what you are thinking. Think.”

I think we are in rats’ alley  
Where the dead men lost their bones.

“What is that noise?”  
The wind under the door.  
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”  
Nothing again nothing.  
“Do  
“You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember  
“Nothing?”

I remember  
Those are pearls that were his eyes.  
“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”

-T.S. Eliot, _The Waste Land, II. A Game of Chess_

__

* * *

 

 

Charles Xavier knew he was fucked from the second he looked up from the sand. When he opened his eyes he did it suddenly and several times, as if he'd never opened his eyes before. Above his head, a bullet whooshed as if it were very close to his skull. Gooseflesh mounted him suddenly. He blinked his eyes again as the pain came. A searing explosion caused by the bullet that had lodged itself in his lower back. Everything felt so...hot. A sultry mix of confusion and unease. His body stricken with forceful electric shocks until suddenly the all sensation, save for maybe agony, disappeared at hips.

 

It was then he realized he was on the ground. Time had vanished and he couldn’t see straight. He couldn’t assimilate what had happened with what was. He coughed and his body exploded with pain again. He knew he was crying but had forgotten what it was about, he had momentarily lost himself in the incredible lack of sensation and total presence of pain. Suddenly he heard what could only be the explosions of the missiles dropping into the ocean.

 

 _Oh_ , he thought, _that’s right._ He suddenly remembered that gun and the bullets and the scorching Cuban sand.

 

Charles screamed and everything came rushing back.

 

Their plan had been horribly and ostentatiously flawed. Charles had made a good actor, a good teacher, a good friend, a better lover, but he'd made an awful rebel. Change comes at such a cost.

 

So, that Monday afternoon, Oct. 22nd 1962, the air was pregnant and heavy. Over the hot Cuban sands nobody moved. Moira had dropped her heavy metal gun and Erik didn't stop her. She was covering her face with her gloved hands, already accepting full responsibility for what had so suddenly happened to Charles. Erik only stared. Suddenly there was an eruption of noise as Hank McCoy's enormous, cobalt form could be seen sprinting across the beach to where Charles lay.

 

There was a gentle breeze and from the ground and Charles felt it barely move across his skull, it teased his mousey hair slightly. But it did nothing to quell the heat of his body as adrenaline rattled his bones. A large blood stain had spread by the time Hank reached him. Taking Charles' body up in his arms he carefully turned him over.

 

Charles screamed and gripped Hank's taunt shoulder, "Fuck Hank! Fuck!"

 

Charles couldn’t see as Erik grabbed both Raven and Angel and with Azazel's help ricocheted through an open path in spacetime.

 

“Erik, that piece of shit.” Hank growled, knowing what Charles didn't. Erik had left them all there. Charles very easily could die now.

 

“I am fairly certain,” Charles cried, barely able to speak, eyes watering and mouth tasting like blood, “I’m fairly certain,” he began again, “that I’ve just been paralyzed.”

 

Moira looked at Hank and then down at the growing pool of blood in the sand,“We need to get the bullet out, he’s going to go into shock.”  


Hank hissed,“If I remove the bullet myself the injury has a greater chance of become permanent.”  


“I’m paralyzed.” Charles repeated, “I can’t feel my legs.” His eyes glossy, his heart rate dangerously high, “Hank, Hank.” The pain was so great he couldn’t see, “Hank am I blind? Have I gone blind?”  


“Charles,” Hank pressed two fingers to the inside of Charles’ throat, “Tell me what you want me to do?”  


“I’m dying,” Charles gasped with a great amount of certainty.

 

Hank and Moria made eye contact again, “If I do anything,” Hank said, “If I move him, if I were to take the bullet out, if I even shift him a little, the nerves that have been impacted could totally destabilize.”  


“If you do nothing spinal shock will kill him.” Moria said.

 

Hank touched his face, pinched his eyes, and let a growl escape his throat, “Okay. Okay. Charles,” he looked down at his friend, he was barely conscious, “if I remove the bullet now there is a very high chance you’ll never walk again, never regain sensation. You’d need a wheelchair for the rest of your life.”  


Charles’ eyes closed slowly, “I don’t want to die,” he managed as hot unconsciousness took him.

 

  
What brought him back, of course, was Hank pulling the bullet from his spine inside of the body of their destroyed jet. He awoke to his own crying out in pain and to Sean’s arm across his chest. He heard Moira asking when rescue would arrive. Charles Xavier woke in a pool of his own blood.

 

-

Charles was screaming, lying wrapped up inside of his own mind. Just outside the bondage of time, he waited and every once in awhile he tried to move his legs. He found himself thinking about the lack of time and how much may have passed. He found himself obscurely petrified, fearing that soon he should cease to be anything at all and would become something raging without a body. Suddenly, while he had been youthfully unaware of them, he had found time, and pain, and God.

 

What brought him back, of course, was Hank pulling the bullet from his spine inside of the body of their destroyed jet. He awoke to his own crying out in pain and to Sean’s arm across his chest. He heard Moira asking when rescue would arrive. Charles Xavier woke in a pool of his own blood.

 

"You've done good, Chap," Charles muttered gently as Hank passed him, his fur matted in blood.

 

Hank started to see the Professor awake. Charles' face screwed up into a grimace of pain, Cuban light streaming in through the ruined glass windows.

 

"Professor," he knelt so that Charles could better see him, "I've managed to stop the bleeding, but-"

 

Charles could hear Moira pacing. The grind of her boots on shattered glass. His head hurt too badly to read Hank's mind, although he could sense Hank's agitation.

 

"But what?" Charles asked, beginning to shift but crying out in pain.

 

"First of all, don't move. Havoc?" Hank looked over, outside of Charles' line of sight, "Come here please, and help me turn the Professor onto his side, I want to clean the blood up."

 

Charles coughed, wondering how much blood he had lost. He swallowed as Havoc moved passed him. His form muscled and tall, stooping under caved sections of metal.

 

"Hank, please." Charles demanded, watching as Havoc maneuvered his lower body, his feet awkward looking and crooked. Charles tried to help him with the weight but found he couldn't.

 

_Oh that’s right, how could I forget…?_

 

“Are you not supposed to move someone with a spinal cord injury?” Asked Charles slowly, the grinding pain returning to his lower back. The intensity so much that his vision began to swim, he was guided quickly back into a tense unconsciousness.

 

Voices drifted in and out of the metal. The sun was falling. They would have to stay the night. The tension was too high for the American's to reach the beach. International affairs were problematic. On the thin foam seats they'd tried their best to make Charles comfortable but the pain was unbearable, so numb he swore his body was slowly drifting away. Waves of thick, wasted neurons shook his spine.

 

"uhghhg..." Charles mumbled slowly.

 

Everything in the universe had become a tasteless and dilatory soup.

 

"What is it?" Hank turned on his heels. He'd been staring distantly out at the sand.

 

Charles let his hand slip from his chest, he reached for Hank’s arm, “I can’t feel my legs.”

“I know.” Was all Hank said.

 

“So the bullet…it...?”

 

“Yes. Very likely.”

 

Charles’ hands roved along his torso now and stopped at his hips, feeling the thick bandage there, damp in some spots. It felt as though he were touching someone else’s body.

 

“mmmhughhhh…” He intoned again before absconding into an exhausted sleep.

 

* * *

 

The morning came around, his breakfast on tan Styrofoam plates, he practices transferring from his hospital bed to his chair. His nurse watches him, correcting his movements here and there. He practices his cycles of urination, he is forced to relearn what is left of his body and some days it makes him sad. He endures another miserable session of physical therapy.

 

He hasn't cut his hair. In the courtyard and morning sun, he smokes warm joints with Sean. The herb glowing, they are both careful to spin the joint so does not canoe. Together they pretend to be men.

 

"I know how you felt about Erik." Sean says one day, his body stretched out like cotton in the sun. His red hair firey.

 

Charles smiles lightly, the dope helps him forget his paralysis and eases his pain and muscle spasms,

 

"Moria keeps telling me he’ll come back, but I’m not too sure.”

 

"He's afraid, you know, of what he did."

 

"He needn't be."

 

"That doesn't change it. It won't ever change it," Sean says softly, “He paralyzed you, Charles, he has got to face that.”

 

Above them, the clouds shift through an endless sky. The air sort of doleful, sort of sleepy.

 

"It would be hard I think..." Charles chooses his words stiffly, "What with my legs..."

 

"I really do think he'll come back, Professor."

 

Charles shirks his title, waving a hand in front of his face quickly, as if swatting at a bug, "Sean, don't have to call me that."

 

Sean only shrugs.

 

There are some footsteps on the brick walkway. Charles straightens up for a moment, worrying it could be Erik. He grips his armrests and damns his insecurity about his legs.

 

Sean catches his movements and laughs louder than he intended, "Professor..." he laughs again.

 

Charles grows red, "You caught that?" He was embarrassed.

 

The footsteps grow closer and stop. Sean glances up, his eyes red and happy. Erik stood, his square back square to the sun. His crimson helmet gleaming and dense on his dome.

 

"Charles…" his gravel voice rolls from his throat, "Charles...are you high?"

 

"Erik?" Charles squints, but with the breeze and shift of a tree limb he's gone. Charles grimaces, so wishing he could love the man who had gravely injured him. So wishing he could love the man who had saved him from naivety and who had exposed him to all the squalor of the world.

 

"He'll come back, Charles." Sean added sleepily, "I know he will."

 

Later that month Sean left for Europe, intending to backpack across its length. A month after that Alex leaves in search of his brother in foster care.

Soon it was just Hank, who refused to leave his side, always thinking about how to repair Charles' spine. He wasn't like Sean, who had understood that Charles was in pain for a very different reason.

 

* * *

 

Charles has closed his eyes, the opiate dreams flooding his mind. Dope dreams of the sixties, dope dreams of Erik. Erik who hadn't come back. Maybe he was sad and full of guilt. Maybe he was harsh and full of unrequited hate too, Charles considered both a possibility. Some nights, when he wakes from these dreams, he cries. He tells himself to be an adult, to man up. But the more he tries the less it works, and it is soon that Charles realizes that he loves Erik, despite everything, but by love he means hate...or perhaps vice versa. 

 

It was the middle of an unreasonably algid November night. One month and two days after the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was autumn in New York and Charles was thankful to have been transferred from his admitting hospital in Florida. The trees outside had caught fire with color and the grounds of the complex were frosted and white with a light snow. Simply put, Charles couldn’t sleep. His back hurt and he’d grown tired of lying in his bed all day.

 

So there he was, body still unfamiliar with his paralysis, leaning to one side. He let his hands explore the wheels of the uncomfortable hospital chair. Soon he would be getting one made for long term use. For the first time since Cuba, he begins to let his hands thoroughly ascertain the damage done. It takes a lot of deep breathing and coaxing but before he knew it he was poring over his lower body. The doctors had said that his paralysis was complete, they had done too much moving and the bullet (which had almost entirely severed his spinal column) had been removed too crudely. And even though the removal of the bullet was necessary for saving his life Charles often wonders if Erik had been the one to remove it, slowly working it free with an easy magnetism, if he had done the removing could he have saved Charles' legs? There was no hope, the Neurologist had said, of any return of mobility or sensation. He was still recovering from his fourth, and last surgery. Any chance of recovery had been lost. The only thing he could do now was become reacquainted with his body.

 

Charles let his hands rove with certainty up and down his shins. They felt as though they were not his own. His knee caps, then under the knee. He looked at his legs bitterly as if they, and not Erik, had betrayed him. He tried desperately to remember what it was like to have working limbs. To run, to stand, to balance and to bend. But, for the life of him, he was at a loss. His knees again, his thighs, warily he let hands slide closer and closer to his-

 

Abruptly that erosive voice interrupted him, “Charles?”

 

“Erik.” Charles returned somewhat startled without turning around. He had to maintain his composure.

 

“Do you know how long it’s taken me to find you?”

 

“It shouldn’t have been so hard. I’m in a public hospital after all.”

 

“I see as much. I expected your full recovery by now, Charles...how are you?”

 

Charles’ hands gripped the wheels on his chair tight enough to cause him pain. Carefully and with purpose he pushed his left arm back, turning the wheelchair around in one smooth movement. The thick brace preventing much movement at his midsection. Erik took the sight in. Examining Charles as closely has he could manage, his heart in his throat. Charles’ shirt was open as his chest, a few ribs showed above where the brace covered his midsection, his hair wasn’t so long but enough to cause a variation in his appearance. His arms appeared slightly toned where his shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. He looked pained, exhausted, his eyes were circled in darkish shadows, and he looked as though he was struggling to sit up. And then...there were his legs. Already they were beginning to atrophy. His knees looked pronounced, his ankles pushed out by the heels of his feet. His feet were not sitting evenly on their footrests, his right foot turned in crookedly.

 

Erik came closer, taking a few steps, clearly dismayed.  Charles pressed his lips together, his hands still pressed onto the wheels. Erik’s eyes moved from Charles’ face to his legs infirm.

 

“Won’t you stand to greet an old friend?” Erik’s voice cracked, but he went on, “or can’t you?”

 

“Erik…” Charles toiled over the words trapped in his mouth, “I...you...left us...back in October, on that god awful beach with no hope of rescue. Hank had to pull the...the bullet…” His cleared his throat roughly, “out himself.” Charles wiped an angry tear from his cheek. “By the time we were airlifted the damage had already been done.”

 

“So...the bullet then, it-”

 

“Paralyzed me? Yes...” A long moment of heated resentment cools.

 

There was a breath of silence that aged like aeon.

 

“Will you recover?” Erik ceased his examination and attempted to make eye contact, but Charles would not meet his eyes.

 

“The doctor’s say I won’t. My spinal column,” he cleared his throat again, fighting back tears, “was close to being fully severed.”

 

Another few seconds go by, Erik returns to studying Charles' body, “Have you retained any sensation?”

 

“No.”

 

“None at all?”

 

Charles looked at him seriously, “Last time I checked that’s what no meant.”

 

Erik swallowed hard and sank slowly onto the tiled floor, “This is all my fault,” He muttered, “What have I done?”

 

Charles eyed Erik warily before pushing himself forward until the two men were close enough to touch, the wheels squeaking loudly in the late night air. Erik looked up at this action and gathered himself, shifting onto his knees. Then taking a deep breath, Erik began to run his hand along Charles' braced torso. His long fingers moved up and down the hardened plastic, they found pleasure in his collarbones, and eroticism in his now narrowing hipbones. Erik loved his body no matter what state. Erik takes a moment to touch Charles' legs, gripping a shin in his wide hands. Holding it as if his touch alone was enough to repair the injury.

 

Charles met his action with hostility, “Don't you touch me," Charles intoned, but when he finally dredged the courage to meet Erik's gaze, their proximity became breathless, "not now."

 

Erik feels as if he were smacked and looks away, _'of course,'_ he thinks, ' _I would deserve that.'_ Charles lets a thought form, one of Erik wrapping himself up around him, the way it used to be. Legs tangled up, easy breathing, laughing, sex. Everything had become an exhausting task.

 

Erik places his head gently on Charles' legs and his touch vanishes. The thought now fully formed is pushed gently into Erik's mind. He had come without his helmet and Charles thought it were only fair to remind him of what he could now never have.

 

Erik looks up as the image bleeds into his mind and fills his body with sensations and memories they had made together, "We can still have all those things," Erik exhaled, "You are not broken, Love," Erik wants to cry but foregoes such action, "Life will go on, you will relearn all of this. You are still everything you always were." Charles holds back a sob.

 

Erik manages, “I am so sorry,” and then, “Gott, how I love you.” And looks up at Charles from where his head had been buried in his lap, Erik slips his hand gently beneath Charles' cotton shirt, filling it with air from the window, gooseflesh mounts Charles' skin. He wanted this so badly, so entirely,

 

"Please," Charles tries apathetically, "it scares me."

 

Suddenly Erik's hand stops its caress as he feels the deep scar tissue that lines Charles' back. Indented and soft. Erik fingers it for a few moments then cringes, reminded of what such scars mean. He buries his face into Charles' neck. Trying to hold back his tears of his now unsettled guilt. His absence hadn’t been due to anger, but instead to the delinquency of his shortsighted actions, "I will be scared with you," Erik mumbles into Charles' neck.

 

He gropes for Erik's hand and seizes it. Charles remorsefully shies away.

 

After some time Erik's hand begins to move again and finally he reaches Charles' neck. He looks to Charles and pulls them closer until their lips are nearly touching.

 

"Do you remember..." he expresses, "us?" Erik's breath reaches Charles' skin and a shiver raced down his spine and disappeared.

 

"Of course. How could I forget?"

 

Erik's mouth was provocative, his fingers trembling and confused. He shifted to his knees again as he pressed his lips to Charles'. Erik leans as far into him as he could.

 

"I love you," Erik manages, fumbling onto Charles' wheelchair and working his knees to either side of Charles' atrophied legs, "Gott," he gathered himself, "how I love you.".

 

The window beside them let in some pale and intrusive light as Erik pulled the clothes from his body and then carefully...from Charles'. Very slowly Erik's presses their foreheads together. Charles takes both wheels and pushes them backward until they met the wall with a soft thud, "It was never about the injury," Charles whispers verily into the still fading light, "all this pain...it's been about us."

 

Then, clumsily locking the wheels in place, he gripping Erik's tense shoulders. And, as any cautionary tale told of human tongue, they became one person wrapped in a bundle of skin and neurons. Nothing had been so fierce before, apart from such remorse, they made what love they could.

 

* * *

 

On November 20th 1963 (one year later) two things were happening at once:

 

[Hank was standing by the big bay window, taking a reprieve from his lab work and Charles was sitting on his bed down the hall committing suicide.]

 

Charles watched in anamnesis as Hank stood looking out the big bay window as he often did, mulling scientifically. It was winter in New York and it was raining and fairly cold. Raindrops lingering on the glass by the process of adhesion. Hank was forever considering the implications of Charles injury, blaming himself and at the same time knowing that he hadn’t had a choice in removing the bullet, crude though it may have been. The actions replying in dark nostalgia over and over and over again. Hank thought he’d never be rid of the memory, and he was probably right. Charles listened wraithlike, on the outskirts of Hank’s mind, and at the same time he held a needle in his hand, the barrel filled with enough Heroin to successfully kill himself. Charles listened further:

 

_Hank rung his hands and took a deep breath, both his eyes behind his glasses readjusting to focus on his ultramarine form. He grimaced and his teeth shone, his great barrel chest rising and falling easily. The grounds at his front and the empty mansion at his back. October 1962, while it had been as long as a year ago, Hank was still deliberating over Charles’ injury. The Harrington Rods had not been successful in stabilizing the traumatized motion segments, the last surgery had made no difference, and while both halo and halter traction had been recently introduced both had been mostly designed to treat cervical injuries, Charles’ injury had been to the lower thoracic section._

 

Charles sighed, Hank was right about the calamity the bullet had caused, but he was wrong about how it had affected him. After all the pain and all the anger, Charles couldn’t give a fuck that his injury was permanent. That wasn’t what bothered him, despite what everyone thought. Hank seemed so willing to confront his paralysis, but seemingly unwilling to confront his homosexuality.

 

Ableism, homophobia, and diffidence, and Charles was fucking sick of all of it.

 

Although he wouldn’t talk about, Charles knew that Raven leaving had ruined Hank, just as Erik’s leaving done to him.

 

_Perhaps, Hank thought, if he had not been forced to remove the bullet so crudely Charles would still have some sensation or mobility below the level of injury. Hank had seen the x-rays himself, the lower section of Charles’ Thoracic spine had been destroyed. The initial impact from the bullet had crushed the vertebrae at the T11-T12 level. The bullet’s velocity greatly increased by Erik’s intervention. And then, of course, Hank had removed the bullet himself, and that was where the real damage had been done, the removal destabilizing the thoracicoabdominal intercostal nerves at the T11 level and the Subcostal nerve at the T12 level, and ultimately leading to complete paraplegic injury._

 

Charles rolled the needle around in his hand, and then with a great deal of anxiety he slowly forced it beneath his skin and into the vein, emptying the barrel, deliberately pushing the plunger down until all one hundred and twenty-three milligrams of Heroin had entered his bloodstream. He was sitting in the edge of his bed, feet resting unevenly on the floor. The belt he had used slipped from his bicep and onto the mattress. He closed his eyes. This was only his second time doing Heroin, he’d done it once prior at Oxford. He’d also tried amphetamines, LSD, and had of course, smoked his fair share of marijuana. His eyes fell closed as the Heroin rushed to his brain and was quickly converted back into Morphine.

 

His skin warmed and his mind clouded. He fell easily back onto his bed, his legs of course, unmoving. He fumbled to remove the needle. The rush, the nod...his body turned to liquid. It could’ve been fifteen minutes or fifteen hours, his body could not reconcile how much time had actually passed with how much it had felt like.

 

_Charles clumsily fumbled around in Hank’s mind as his own antithesis and synthesis grew clouded. A storm front was moving into the area, the rain slowly turned to ice. Hank’s hair bristled and he shivered, looking at his watch. He made had the decision to wait a while longer, looking out into the growing torrent._

 

As more time passed for Charles the dizziness grew and his pulse became irregular. Then, without warning, he couldn't breathe.

 

His chest felt tight as he gasped for breath. No air came. His hands pushed sluggishly across his chest, black spots swam and oscillated through his field of vision. His sense of self began to ablate, his shoulders and abdomen shaking violently. _This was it, he was going to die._ When they found him perhaps they would just assume he had died like so many others claimed by the Heroin epidemic, by accidental overdose, perhaps they wouldn’t realize it had been intentional.

 

Hank’s rumination was interrupted suddenly by an intense feeling of dread, Charles was projecting again, but Hank could not guess what about. He began to make his way to Charles' room and as he pushed the door open Hank was alarmed to find what looked like a near dead Charles struggling to breathe.

 

“Charles? Is everything...”

 

Charles began to shake forcefully as Hank moved upon him. He tried to lift Charles into his arms but to his surprise, Charles resisted, pushing Hank away and gasping for air. But it wasn’t until Hank attempted to force Charles into his arms that he found the needle and the belt. Hank’s distress grew as he pulled the pieces together; _Charles had just intentionally overdosed on Heroin._

 

Charles wouldn't be moved, tearing at Hank’s face and arms. Angrily Hank forced Charles’ body to the floor by tugging at his paralyzed legs. Charles hit the floor with a loud thud but recovered quickly, even landing a good punch to the side of Hank’s skull. Charles tore at the bedsheets, managing to get his chest back onto the bed before Hank pulled at him again, this time at his hips.

 

Charles tried to flip onto his stomach but the fall from the bed had knocked the air from his lungs. Hank forced his fingers down Charles’ throat, trying to trigger his gag reflex. Charles fought him though, pushing at Hank's muscled form and tearing at his fur, blue chunks coming away in angry fistfuls. Charles was still refusing to let Hank induce vomiting, biting at his hands and pressing his lips shut. Charles panicked, trying to get out from under Hank's frame. Twisting his upper body and digging at the carpet.  

 

His articulation gone, Charles slurred, "fuck off," and swung at Hank's jaw dizzily, his vision close to total darkness and his head full of warm air, his chest heaving. Hank quickly ducked the easy blow. Charles clawed at the stronger man's face, "you bastard," he growled vehemently, perhaps if Charles hadn't been so far gone he could've reached out and stopped Hank with his mind, but not now. Charles yelled loudly, driving his forehead square into Hank’s face, breaking his nose. Blood erupted violently, running down Hank’s muzzle and gathering in his fur, he reeled dumbly and Charles used the opportunity to haul himself across the room but Hank caught him quickly, despite his likely concussion and broken nose.

 

Charles turned groggily onto his back as Hank grabbed him by the ankle and yanked him back within arm's reach.

 

"What are you doing?!" Hank roared, extending his entire palm flatly to Charles' chest and pinning him there, forcing Charles' mouth open by squeezing his jaw. The action brought with it another spray of blood to which Charles, as it hit his face, closed his eyes tightly and wrinkled his nose.

 

With his last bit of strength, Charles bit down hard on Hank's hand and fingers as they shot unwillingly to the back of his throat. Charles' mouth filled with Hank's blood, but Hank was not phased, and managed to trigger Charles’ gag reflex anyway. Charles vomited forcefully within the next few seconds, his body overwhelmed as so much Heroin was expelled. Hank turned him onto his side and helped clear his airways. Charles coughed, inhaled and exhaled shakily, opened and closed his eyes, and then looked at Hank bitterly.

 

“Charles," Hank panted as he dialed for an ambulance, kneeling in a plashet of blood and vomit, his nose aching badly, "what the hell were you thinking? How much Heroin did...you...for Christ’s sake, if I hadn’t...you would’ve...Christ...” he finished with a growl, “they’ll still probably want to give you charcoal.”

 

Warm tears fell from the corners of Charles’ eyes, and then quietly, “you fucking asshole,” and finishing to himself, _if only it were that simple._

 

* * *

 

Charles remembers where he was when it happened, because...well... _wasn’t that what everyone was saying?_

 

He was laying flat on his back, a blue exercise mat between him and the floor, looking out the window into a New York November. Fog and drizzle and a coating of frost over all the ground. An absent look drawn across his face as Hank rotated his ankles and flexed his knees before they moved on to another of the many psychical assessments and evaluations of sensation that he had already had.

 

“Can you push on my hand, Charles?” Hank’s voice cut through his absent state of mind.

 

Charles squinted up Hank from the floor, “I’m sorry?”

 

Hank looks at him, holding Charles’ right leg bent at the knee in the air, “Push on my hand.” His nose is taped up and still somewhat swollen, both of his eye sockets bruised.

 

“Hank,” Charles looks directly at him, cringing at the damage he’d done to Hank’s face, but goes on in a unimpressed voice, “I can’t even feel my foot and you’re asking me to move my leg.”

 

With that Hank rested Charles’ foot on his shoulder and reached behind him, brandishing a small pin, Charles sighed, agitated. Hank frowned, “Sorry, but we’ve got to do this. Once a month, remember?” He placed the pin between his teeth and flexed Charles’ right ankle a second time.

 

And Charles could hear Hank thinking in a jumble of medical jargon as he went about pin pricking his entire lower body. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

> _[11thintercostalspacemidpointofinguinalligamenthalfthedistancebetweenT12andL2midanteriorthighmedialfemoralcondylemedialmalleolusd orsumofthefootatthirdmetatarsophalangealjointlateralheelpoplitealfosainthemidlineischialtuberosityperianalarea]_
> 
>  
> 
> _[hipflexorskneeextensorsankledorsiflexorslongtoeextensorsankleplantarflexors]_
> 
>  
> 
> _[¿canyoufeelthiscanyoufeelthiscanyoufeelthiswhatabouthereherewhataboutnowanythingcanyoufeelthiscanyofeelthis?]_
> 
>  
> 
> _[and it was always, “no, no, no, I’m sorry, no”]_
> 
> _[hank goes on to perform a rectal examination to check motor function or sensation at the anal mucocutaneous junction and just like every time charles dreads it, despite the absence of sensation. as hank tells charles to roll onto his side he pulls his sweatpants down just enough so that hank can perform the tests. charles closes his eyes firmly, lighting up with embarrassment.]_
> 
>  
> 
> _[while hank goes about this he asks charles about his urinary function, which was unchanged.]_
> 
>  

So that was it then? Everything was still the same, not a thing had changed. It was just Hank and Charles in huge, empty mansion, a animosity growing in their company.

 

“So,” Hank says helping Charles with his pants, “are we going to talk about your taking an overdose?” Charles pulls himself into a seated position, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. He doesn’t answer, “Or at least,” Hank continues miffed, “where you got so much Heroin.”  

 

“Everyone is shooting up Hank, you know as well as I do that Heroin is-” Charles is interrupted by a news broadcast on the television but goes on anyway, “that Heroin is-” Hank is saying something but Charles forces his voice into the background as he hears something terrifying, “Hank.” Hank continues to talk, “Hank.” Charles puts a little force behind his voice but cannot take his eyes off the newsreel of John F Kennedy riding through Dallas Texas in a open top convertible, the footage playing again and again, “Hank!” That gets his attention, “I think the President has just been shot,” Charles says shakily.

 

“What?” Hank spins around to get a view of the television.

 

Charles says quietly, “The President Hank, someone has just shot the President.”

 

Charles remembers where he was as he squinted across the living area at the reel of president Kennedy’s assassination. And Charles remembers where he was when he realizes that Erik Lehnsherr had, alongside Lee Harvey Oswald, been a co-conspirator.

 

Charles remembers that it was November 22nd, 1963 and that it was twelve-thirty.

 

He remembers that not even three days prior he had taken an overdose of Heroin and how a year prior the same man who had bent the bullet to assassinate the president had bent the bullet that had paralyzed him. And he remembers how he’d hated that man. He had hated Erik when they woke up on that morning back in 1962, laying around with messy hair in the sunlight that pushed its way through burgundy curtains. He had hated him when they were naked and when they were clothed. He had hated him when he had gone through with killing Shaw. He had hated him the instant that evil bullet shattered his vertebrae. When he had disappeared Charles had hated Erik, and he hated him when he came back in the middle of the night. He had hated him that night with the window open and with cold air rushing over their warm bodies. He had hated Erik when he climbed onto the chair he’d put Charles in and then that same night when they had made love in that same chair. He had hated Erik as he had slipped his clothes off so carefully around his back brace. He had hated Erik when he both saw Charles’ chair _and_ didn’t care, instead of just one or the other. When he had taken an overdose he’d hated Erik too. And despite seeing him that day, vanishing in a thin veil of smoke, on that terrible hill, on that terrible news footage...despite all that...Charles still hated Erik...

 

...or was it love? Fuck if Charles knew.

 

Charles remembers how JFK had only been forty-six and then when the vice president was sworn in later that day, Jackie Kennedy still had her husband’s blood on her clothing.

 

Charles remembers watching Erik hauled away, plastic cable ties around his wrists.

 

Charles remembers hearing that Oswald had been transferred to the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters and Lehnsherr to a specially designed cell beneath the Pentagon. Erik would be serving a life sentence.

 

Charles remembers looking at Hank, his bulky blue mass, his shoulders wrought with nervous tension, two black eyes, and a badly broken nose, which, it not soon rebroken would heal crookedly.

 

Charles finally begins the process of getting himself back up into his wheelchair from the floor. He straightens his legs out, pulling each foot onto his footrests and shifts until his back is no longer uncomfortable. He clears his throat, hands on the wheels, as Hank stands and dusts his fur off.

 

“He never came back.” Hank says pointedly.

 

“Come again?” Charles says, pushing himself across the living room.

 

“I said he, Erik, never came back after Cuba.” Hank looks at Charles, “Do you think he even knows what he did?”

 

In a fluid movement Charles redirects his chair and makes direct eye contact. He bites his bottom lip nervously, “How could you not know?”

 

“I’m not sure what you mean?” Hank said, fingers fixing a butterfly bandage across his nose.

 

“Erik and I...how could you not know?”

 

Hank looked anxious and began to fiddle with his glasses, repeating, “I don’t know...I’m not sure...”

 

Charles sighed audibly, “Erik and I...we were...”

 

But Hanks beats him to it, “...homosexuals...” Hank goes out of his way to look at him, Charles sees some disgust on his face.

 

“And he did come back, while I was still in the hospital. He does know, and he hates himself for it.”

 

“He shot you!” Hank yelled, throwing his arms into the air, “How could you fuck him? Look what he did to you.”

 

“It was an accident! He didn’t mean to hurt me!” Charles returned, venomous.

 

“He crippled you, Charles, shattered your vertebrae.” Hank shot, “You’re never getting better and it’s his fault!” Hank went on, “Not to mention he’s just shot the fucking president. He’s a psychopath!” Hank looked pained, His nose throbbing, "He's a monster and he's fucking dangerous. How can you not see that?" 

 

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Charles bellowed, “as if my injury is the worst thing imaginable! As if I wanted to kill myself because I can’t walk.” Charles gripped both knees strongly, “Please! Don’t you see how all this pain has been about Erik? This whole time. Honestly, fuck you Hank, really. Everyone assuming my emotions for me, telling me how to feel. And I suppose I’m an invalid now, a cripple who can’t do anything for himself.” Charles finished as Hank stormed out of the room, “You were all so caught up in my injury you couldn’t see what’s really happened to me," and then, "I love him! I fucking love him! I can't help that!"

 

“Fuck you, Charles!” Was the last thing Hank said as he made his way down to his lab angrily, "Of all people you had to love you chose Erik Lehnsherr!"

 

Charles moved down the hallway, still in shock. At the end of the hall he pushed the door to his room open with one hand and with the other he gripped the doorframe and pulled himself in. He pulled out Freewheelin, and placed it on the record player’s platter. Bob Dylan’s voice spilt in. Once all this was done Charles poured a drink and reached inside the drawer of his nightstand, retrieving the Heroin, and a belt from the floor. He looked at the bed, messy blankets and pillows stacked against the headboard

 

Charles began the process of getting his body from his wheelchair to the bed, it was something he’d done so many times that he barely had to think about it. Methodically, Charles moved himself as near to the bed as possible and engaged the brakes, placing his hands on the mattress he used his shoulders to take the weight of his lower body. He turned around carefully and used the muscles in his upper torso to work his hips backward and onto the bed. Charles successfully transferred. He then moved his frame to the headboard, taking one leg by the ankle and the other under his knee, moving both until they lay in front of him. He took a moment to breathe, straightening his pants and pulling the wrinkles out of his shirt.

 

He reached over to his drink and tripped it back, swallowing the whole thing easily. Then he rolled up his left sleeve and tightened the belt around his bicep and made a fist, encouraging the vein. 

 

Just him and his Heroin and is whiskey.

 

JFK was dead, Erik was serving a life sentence, and just like yesterday and the yesterday’s yesterday, Charles lived with the reminder that Erik loved him just enough to use him. Charles hated Erik and unfortunately, by hating him, Charles meant that he loved him.

 

With his lips pressed together, and the belt between his teeth, he pushed the needle beneath his skin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

> ♪♪♪♪♪You fasten all the triggers
> 
> For the others to fire
> 
> Then you set back and watch
> 
> When the death count gets higher
> 
> You hide in your mansion'
> 
> As young people's blood
> 
> Flows out of their bodies
> 
> And is buried in the mud♪♪♪♪♪♪♪
> 
>  

As Masters of War faded Charles was interrupted by a slowly materializing Erik. His frame loose and disconnected at first, but after some time he became more solid. Charles looked dismayed. Wondering if he had somehow conjured this image in his grief and anger.

“Erik?” Charles tried hard to get the words from his throat. 

 

Erik was looking at his own body, seemingly surprised by the turn of events, “What...how has this happened?”

 

“...ahhumm...I’m not sure really...figured this dose was spiked with something, acid maybe...” Charles slurred, looking at Erik with glossy eyes. 

 

“I’m afraid not,” said Erik, looking at Charles, “you’ve done this Charles, you’ve brought me here...well at least intrinsically. In some...” he turned his hands over again, looking at them seriously, “non-physical telepathic realm.”

 

Charles looked at Erik fervidly, with lust, “I assure you...this can be as...physical as I’d like it to be...”

 

Erik moves around the bed, eyeing the paraphernalia, “Heroin, Charles?” Erik looked concerned.

 

“I didn’t bring you here to scold me, I’m my own adult.”

 

Erik sighed and gathered himself on the bed with Charles, “What am I doing here?” Erik crossed his legs and faced him.

 

“Did you really kill the president, Erik?”

 

Erik exhaled, his breath quivering, “Yes.”

 

“Oh Erik...” a single, angry tear escaped Charles’ control, “why have you done all these awful things?”

 

Erik extended a trembling hand to brush Charles’ jaw, “You’ve grown your hair out.” Erik says, and without thinking he runs a hand up Charles right leg, squeezing his thigh, “you look tired.”

 

Charles allows his eyes to take in the whole of Erik’s presence, noticing the raw marks from the cable ties, “Well I suppose I am...tired that is...”

 

Erik’s hand moved again, this time, to grip the back of Charles’ head, “I love you Charles, but I won’t apologize for this revolution.” He leaned in, biting gently on Charles’ bottom lip.

 

Charles kissed back, pressing his lips to Erik’s, having to lean a good way over himself, his inactive hips making it tricky to reach the other man, “You’re just far enough away to make this difficult for me.”

 

Erik nodded and gently pulled at Charles’ hips until he had gotten Charles onto his back, straddling his hips. Erik kissed him again. Working Charles' shirt off, Erik made his way around Charles’ torso. He then pulled his own clothing off and removed Charles' pants.

 

“You’ve lost a good deal of muscle tone.” Erik says with slight remorse, lifting Charles’ right leg and running his tongue from his shin to his thigh, “I looked into your level of injury,” Erik said, “I know that it can be very difficult to achieve and maintain an erection.” Erik moved up to Charles’ hips now, both of his legs resting on Erik’s shoulders. He nibbled his way across the line where Charles sensation ended and the paralysis began, “But I read that your erroneous zones...”

 

“My neck.” Charles stuttered, quickly, breathing hard, “...it’s my neck...”

 

Erik nodded and let Charles' legs to fall back onto the dusty blankets and bed sheets. Then he began using his lips to explore which areas of Charles’ neck he should focus on, this collar bones and his throat it seemed, were very sensitive. Erik continued biting and sucking and licking. Charles body grew hot and his breathing quick, he hummed contentedly.

 

Erik pushed inside of him, holding Charles’ legs so they bent at his knees, his thighs pressed against his torso. Erik made love to Charles for what seemed like a long time, thrusting and growling and biting his neck. After so much time, Erik came and Charles achieved mental orgasm, Erik rolled onto his side and Charles cried into the crook of Erik’s neck, “I wish we could be together.” Charles sobbed, “in some other time, in some other world, I wish we could be together. I wish you hadn’t done all these terrible things.” Erik pulled Charles into him, holding him tightly, “I fucking hate you Erik, I hate you so much.”

 

“I know you do, Charles.” Erik whispered into Charles’ mop of messy hair. Incense burning in the background, the light of the one lamp fuzzy, the night endless outside the bedroom window.

 

Charles yawned sleepily,“...be here in the morning Erik...” he nuzzled deeper into Erik’s arms.

 

“I will be.” Erik lied, “I will.”

 

“I’m useless before ten remember...so sleep in with me.”

 

Erik, for the first time since the day his mother had died, cried, choking out, voice cracking, “You’re forgetting Charles, how early I get up,” it wasn’t a loud, painful cry, instead it was a cry that didn’t even wake Charles up. It was a quiet and aching sob. The deeper Charles fell into sleep the more the projection of Erik began to scatter, vanishing into the scent of sex and nag champa, the taste of the salt water covering his lips. 

* * *

  
Thanks for reading! You made it through this terribly sad, angst-filled fic! I'd love your feedback! Again forgive any errors, I will be continuing to scan and fix these as time goes on. Down below in the notes section, you will find my APA citations that I used to make this fic as accurate as possible. Hope you enjoyed. :)

**Author's Note:**

> Casady, D., Casady, R., & DeLilla, T. (n.d.). Sexuality After SCI. Retrieved January 5, 2016, from http://www.spinalcordinjury.net/Services/services_info_sexuality.htm#Q3
> 
> Chin, L., Dawodu, S., & Mesfin, F. (2015, July 7). Spinal Cord Injuries Clinical Presentation. Retrieved January 4, 2016, from http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/793582-clinical
> 
> Donovan, W. H. (2007). Spinal Cord Injury—Past, Present, and Future. The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine, 30(2), 85–100.
> 
> Heroin overdose: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia (U.S National Library of Medicine)  
> https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002861.htm
> 
> Intercostal Nerves. (2008, February 1). Retrieved January 4, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercostal_nerves
> 
> John F. Kennedy Assassinated. (2009). Retrieved January 3, 2016, from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/john-f-kennedy-assassinated
> 
> Lifshutz, J., & Colohan, A. (2004). A Brief History of Therapy for Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury. Neurosurgery Focus, 16(1). National Center for Biotechnology Information.
> 
> Mold, A. (2007). Illicit drugs and the rise of epidemiology during the 1960s.Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 61(4), 278–281. http://doi.org/10.1136/jech.2006.046334
> 
> May, E. (2013, November 18). John F Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/coldwar/kennedy_cuban_missile_01.shtml
> 
> National Institute on Drug Abuse. Heroin Retrieved from http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/heroin on January 3, 2016
> 
> Nógrádi A, Vrbová G. Anatomy and Physiology of the Spinal Cord. In: Madame Curie Bioscience Database [Internet]. Austin (TX): Landes Bioscience; 2000-. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK6229/
> 
> Subcostal Nerve. (2008). Retrieved January 4, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subcostal_nerve
> 
> Thoraco-abdominal Nerves. (2008). Retrieved January 4, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoraco-abdominal_nerves


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